They say football is a cruel game, but the redundancies announced last Tuesday by Sunderland AFC are among the cruellest cuts of all.

They say football is a cruel game, but the redundancies announced last Tuesday by Sunderland AFC are among the cruellest cuts of all.

That up to 83 employees blameless in the club's demise should pay for it with their jobs is the ultimate indictment of the mismanagement which brought the Black Cats to this sorry pass.

Mismanagement by a chairman who remains in office . . . by directors who, save for one notable exception, remain in office.

And by two managers now departed but sitting in clover, courtesy of club pay-offs.

How telling that one of those managers, Peter Reid, chose last Sunday to claim credit for the construction of Sunderland's current set-up.

For the calamitous cost-cutting measures announced barely 36 hours later again exposed his as an empire built largely on sand.

As if supporters on Wearside needed any further proof of Reid's culpability, aware as they are that the Sunderland side destined for Division One is his in all but name.

That he now appears guaranteed of gainful employment in the Premiership next season - while accepting praise for the survival of a team which was never truly at risk of relegation - is another bitter pill for his former public to swallow.

Yet where there is life there is hope. Even in this dark hour, it glimmers for Sunderland like a solitary star in a cloudy night sky.

And the last few weeks have proved there is plenty of life in both Reid's latest managerial successor and the supporters.

As yet, Mick McCarthy's positive influence has not been rewarded with results. But the performance in defeat against Chelsea eight days ago was suggestion that McCarthy's presence will soften Sunderland's landing in Division One.

And the sterling support it attracted from the terraces proved that the new man will not want for backing in plotting a return course to the Premiership.

No, have no fear about the resolve of either McCarthy or the average Wearside Joe to survive the drop.

My concern, amid mountainous debt, molehill-sized future revenue streams and depreciating assets, is for the men who control Sunderland's purse strings and others who oversee the club's overdraft.

Well, them and the innocents they recently condemned to the dole queue.